Blogger: Wendy Lawton
When I open a fiction manuscript nothing gives away the skill level of the writer more quickly than the writer’s use of description. The novice tends to fall in love with description, offering it generously and effusively. Titian tresses and emerald eyes often feature prominently. Every minute detail is painstakingly described from the brass doorknob touched by the delicate hand to a wall-to-wall description of the ornate room.
So what’s wrong with that? Doesn’t it help paint a picture?
Here’s what’s wrong:
- Description should be offered from the point of view of a particular character, not from the point of view of the author. If the point of view is our hero, for instance– a man’s man– he better not be describing the fabric of a dress, unless he is a tailor, or the kind of flower in the vase, unless he is a botanist.
- The description and the specifics that are noticed should tell us something about the character who is noticing. Description is a tool, a clue to understanding the character.
- Yes, description can set the stage and paint a picture but the skillful writer knows how to sketch a rich scene with just a few strokes of the pen. If the writer over-describes he doesn’t allow room for the reader to create the setting in his own imagination. It’s the scene the reader conjures from his own images and memories that will make the book come alive for him.
- If the writer draws the reader’s eye to something, that reader has a right to expect that object to figure into the story in a significant way. If I point out the regimental sword on the wall, it should either tell me something about the character who put it there or be found, bloodied, beside a body later in the book.
I recently discovered a new-to-me author, Louise Penny, who takes description to a whole new level. Since picking up her first Inspector Gamache book, Still Life, I’ve eagerly read through her entire back list and have pre-ordered her book due out this August. She’s relatively new– ten books in ten years, I believe– but is already a New York Times #1 bestselling author with her books receiving multiple awards and starred reviews. No wonder. The Richmond Times-Dispatch said it best: “An eternally lovely and deeply affecting series. . . that transcends the genre and works, as worthy literature should, on multiple levels. . . A treat for the mind and a lesson for the soul.”
Here’s just one example of how she makes description work on more than one level. She’s describing a recurring main character in the series:
At thirty-five years old, Jean Guy Beauvoir had been Gamache’s second in command for more than a decade. He wore cords and a wool sweater under his leather jacket. A scarf was rakishly and apparently randomly whisked around his neck. It was a look of studied nonchalance which suited his toned body but was easily contradicted by the cord-tight tension of his stance. Jean Guy Beauvoir was loosely wrapped but tightly wound.
Brilliant description, right? If you wish to learn how a master handles description, I’d highly recommend studying Louise Penny.
So how about you? Do you have an example of brilliant description, either from your own work or a favorite author’s work? What are some other things that can be accomplished by using description like a pro? What do amateurs do that sets your teeth on edge?
The best description I have read comes from Forrest Pogue’s account from Omaha Beach, of men advancing into German fire as if “walking in the face of a real strong wind.”
I’m personally not enthralled by Penny’s description, quoted above. To me, it’s overdone, and the ‘toned body’ bit sets my teeth on edge. It doesn’t fit a 2ic’s role, either. He should be too busy to be buff.
To me description is something to be used sparingly, like a spice…or perhaps like cologne.
Interesting, Andrew. Definitely subjective but that description is genius because it lets us see what he wore and turned that into a picture of who he is.
It does paint a word picture, but I thought she could have covered the same ground by saying something like “his raffish dress was an affectation belied by the tension that was ever-present in his bearing.”
Hello, writer friends. I have missed you. Just now easing back into the writing life after the death of my mother in April. It was not unexpected, but it flattened me just the same. Finally emerging, blinking in the sunlight, to say that I love Louise Penny’s writing!
Re description, I’ve sometimes been told I need more and sometimes that I have too much. Trying to find that balance. I do think some readers are more interested in others in details of dress, decor, and food.
I’ve missed you, Jenny. I’m so sorry about your mother. Praying for you today. And yeah, it’s hard to please … preferences vary so.
Welcome back,Jenny. So sorry for your loss.
Jenny, I’m so sorry to hear about your mother. I’ll be praying for you today.
Awww, dear Jenny! I am SO sorry!!! I send you hugs from my heart.
Jenny, you know I’ve missed you here. What a special daughter you were to your mother. Continuing to pray for you, dear friend.
Regarding the balance in your writing, you are so gifted. 🙂
Glad to see you back, Jenny. Deepest sympathies– I’ve walked that path.
I’m so very sorry for your loss.
Wendy, this is wonderful. I still have much to learn in this area, so I am soaking in every word. One thing I’d love to know … if you receive a proposal from a novice, do you decline it if there is too much description or mistakes in POV descriptions? Or if there is potential, say a great story idea … will you give it a chance, in spite of the descriptive errors? Will you give “some” leeway to a novice? Do publishers help with the editing to polish it properly or guide the writer to correct it … where a novice is concerned? I know for me, as a novice fiction writer, I keep working hard to learn, but every corner I turn, I find I’m doing something else wrong. 🙂 It’s an enjoyable but extremely humbling road at times. 🙂 It’s tempting to think at times … I’ll never be good enough … I’ll never master this. But maybe it’s one of those things one never quite masters, like growing spiritually … even the Billy Grahams continue to grow. And I’ve loved all the works I’ve been reading lately, descriptions haven’t bothered me, but clearly, I don’t have the skill that you do to notice. But I can definitely see where there would be a healthy balance there. You’re a gem.
It certainly is a humbling path.
I’m encouraged when I hear from author’s who’ve been at this for a long time share how they’re still learning and growing.
On another note, Shelli. Your enthusiasm for the process is contagious. Keep up the great work!
Oh Jenni … my enthusiasm … thank you, sweet friend! 🙂 I needed a positive. 🙂
A great story idea will give you a chance every time, Shelli. I doubt any agent or editor expects the story to be absolutely perfect. Sometimes you have to simply write the story that you feel in your heart.
Oh, Ann. I can’t tell you what your words mean to me (wiping away tears). Thank you.
If we love the story we tend to forgive much but. . . in this day when it’s getting so difficult to place debut authors, we are less forgiving than ever before. We really are looking for that well-developed skill level.
The key is to not get frozen by any of these craft suggestions. Write the book with confidence and then work from there.
Thank you, Wendy. 🙂
Shelli, you’re someone who has been down some pretty scary roads, yet you are undaunted simply because THOSE roads didn’t kill you, so you press on.
Underneath all that sweet Texas charm is a woman who may bend as the wind howls, but she won’t break. Because it’s hard to break woven titanium infused with Godly faith and a huge heart.
Thank you, Jennifer. 🙂 You know I’m saving and savoring every single word of encouragement here.
Oooh I love description! Here are a couple of examples from some of my favorite authors.
Inkspell—Cornelia Funke
“ The earth fell in folds like a crumpled garment on this side of the hill, and the few trees cowered low, as if they heard the sound of axes too often.”
The Spindlers—by Lauren Oliver—“The girl released Liza’s shoulders abruptly. ‘There is nothing for you Above,” she said angrily. “Nothing but dullness and drudgery, and homework and fighting, and mashed peas and people who won’t give you what you want.”
How to Break a Dragon’s Heart—by Cressida Cowell
“’HALT!’ shouted Stoick the Vast, O Hear His Name and Tremble, Ugh, Ugh, the Chief of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. He was an impressive figure with a magnificent red beard like a lion’s mane that had been vigorously back-combed by maniacs.”
I love these books. They are so awesome. Can’t get enough of these author’s descriptions.
OK, I can’t help it. Here is one more. A character description of the villain.
How to Break a Dragon’s Heart by Cressida Cowell
“…then again there were things about Alvin that made him easy to recognize.
One eye covered by a black eye patch, the other glinting with evil. One leg stamping and muscular, the other capped at the knee with an ivory stump. The moonlight bouncing off his paper-white skull.
These are the kinds of features that you don’t really forget about a person, even if you haven’t seen that person in quite a while.
The only difference was that Alvin used to have a large and arrogant nose.
This man had no nose at all.
Which is never a good look.
He had fashioned himself a nose out of wood and tied it on, roughly in the right place, with an attractive bit of twine, but frankly, from a purely superficial “looks” point of view, you can’t really beat a nose made out of flesh, even if it is a little on the large side.”
I love a talented middle-grade writer. There is just something about the humor and daring that delights me. Ha!
Fun descriptions! Thank you for sharing.
“He was an impressive figure with a magnificent red beard like a lion’s mane that had been vigorously back-combed by maniacs.”
Ahahaha! I laughed out loud!
I love the “How to Train Your Dragon” books. They are always hilarious and yet thoughtful on occasion as well.
Wendy, I loved this. I think the favorite part of the description you shared was that last line: “Jean Guy Beauvoir was loosely wrapped but tightly wound.”
If I may, one thing Susan May Warren shared that’s stuck with me when writing description is to impart it as the character walks through the scene, not all at once, almost like they’re walking through a room. It made sense to me. 🙂
Great advice.
Thank you for this! It’s helpful to remember that if I draw my reader’s attention to something in a scene, it had better be for a reason. Otherwise, I’m just a literary tour guide.
Good way to put it.
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier:
“I heard voices outside our front door – a woman’s, bright as polished brass, and a man’s, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on.They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur.”
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
“As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn’t stop.”
Susan Branch, A Fine Romance:
“And beyond the timeless meadows and emerald pastures, the rabbit holes and moss-covered oak and rowan trees and the “slippy sloppy” houses of frogs, the woodland-scented wind rushed between the leaves and blew around the gray veil that dipped below the fells, swirling up in a mist, blurring the edges of the distant forest.”
Tasha Tudor:
“You should see my corgis at sunset in the snow. It’s their finest hour. About five o’clock they glow like copper. Then they come in and lie in front of the fire like a string of sausages.”
I’m still learning how to balance the proper placement and pacing of description. I’ve been told I have too much fog in the first chapter of my WIP and to tame OTT (over the top) analogies. 🙂
Love your examples of description writing, Jenni. Beautiful.
Great examples. (Loved both Poisonwood Bible and anything Tasha Tudor)
The judicious or injudicious use of description really can make or break a novel. Nothing makes me queasier than a writer spending oodles of time on descriptions of people, especially when the aim is clearly to convince you how fantastically attractive their main characters are. I mean really, even if a girl has hair as glossy black as a raven’s wing falling down her back like a waterfall and velvet eyes with stars caught in them et cetera, et cetera, she still wakes up with morning breath and bedhead like the rest of us.
However, description used wisely can create such a strong sense of place or of a person. I love the way Pearl Buck and Alexander McCall Smith take you to China and Botswana through the pages of their books. No one beats Karen Blixen writing as Isak Dinesen, though. Out of Africa and Shadows On The Grass feature hands down the most beautiful and effective description I’ve ever read.
“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the daytime you felt that you had got high up, near the sub, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.
The geographical position and the height of the land combined to create a landscape that had not its like in all the world. There was no fat on it and no luxuriance anywhere; it was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet, like the strong and refined essence of a continent. The colours were dry and burnt, like the colours of pottery. The trees had light delicate foliage, the structure of which was different from that if the trees in Europe; it did not grow in bows or cupolas, but in horizontal layers, and the formation gave to the tall solitary trees a likeness to the palms, or a heroic and romantic air like full-rigged ships with their sails furled, and to the edge of a wood a strange appearance as if the whole wood were faintly vibrating. Upon the grass of the great plains the crooked bare old thorn-trees were scattered, and the grass was spiced like thyme and bog-myrtles; in some places the scent was so strong that it smarted in the nostrils. All the flowers that you found on the plains, or upon the creepers and liana in the native forest, we’re diminutive like flowers of the downs–only just in the beginning of the long rains a number of big, massive heavy-scented lilies sprang out on the plains. The views were immensely wide. Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequaled nobility.
The chief feature of the landscape, and of your life in it, was the air. Looking back on a sojourn in the African highlands, you are struck by your feeling of having lived for a time up in the air. The sky was rarely more than pale blue or violet, with a profusion of mighty, weightless, ever-changing clouds towering up and sailing on it, but it has a blue vigor in it, and at a short distance it painted the ranges of hills and the woods a fresh deep blue. In the middle of the day the air was alive over the land, like a flame burning; it scintillated, waved and shone like running water, mirrored and doubled all objects, and created great Fata Morgana. Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.”
-Isak Dinesen, ‘Out of Africa’
Daphne du Maurier’s novels also have wonderful description. I read Rebecca every year or so just for the descriptions of Manderley.
Thanks for mentioning Daphne!
“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.” Rebecca
“I had a farm in Africa” … oh, yes. I never read the book, but this was the first movie date my boyfriend (now husband) and I had together. I was only 17 … too young to appreciate the rather long movie … thought I’d never survive it. I love the movie now. 🙂
Yes, I love the movie! And that soundtrack…my goodness, I could listen to it all day! I highly recommend the book, Shelli. It’s really beautiful.
“I love the way Pearl Buck and Alexander McCall Smith take you to China and Botswana through the pages of their books. No one beats Karen Blixen writing as Isak Dinesen, though.”
Amen!
Ah, the reality of bad breath and raven’s wing black bedhead. 🙂
Thanks Jenni, for those quotes from two of my African favorites. The works of Olive Schreiner captured my imagination, transporting me to my too-brief years in Africa.
I have to admit that I’m like Andrew. I wasn’t that touched by the descriptive passage, but I may still have to give a Louise Penny book a try. I like mysteries.
In my own writing, I’ve found if I can come at description of a scene from my character’s viewpoint, it works better. For example, in Angel Sister, my father was a blacksmith so at times I used blacksmith terms to set a scene when he was the POV character. Knowing your characters can help you see things in a different light and help you note what they might think is most important in a particular scene. I’ve always thought descriptive passages were hardest for me, but some reviewers have liked the scenes I set with weather or nature a part.
You write wonderful descriptive passages, Ann. When I visited the Shaker Village I felt as if I had been there before but it was from the pages of your books.
I just deleted a sample book from my Kindle because of overuse of description. Too many adjectives. Every noun had at least one. Ugh. The writing got in the way of the story, and I was out!
Aaaand… it claimed to be from a NYTimes best-selling author.
I don’t get it.
The funny thing is, you’ll find NYT bestsellers breaking all the “rules.” Most of the books I’ve read recently have multiple POVs on the same page. And it works.
Multiple POVs on the same page? And not by accident either? Whoa. 🙂
Wow! Thanks for sharing, Wendy. I have ordered Still Life and can’t wait to read it.
I love that word rakish, so Brit.
I used it early on in my WIP.
Her description is pure joy to read and reread, just to enjoy it again.
Pre-pubbed writers I love read for description ~ Tonia Martin and Pam S. Dunn
Published ~ The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards, The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Yep. Especially The Invention of Wings.
Yes to The Invention of Wings! Another incredible writer (AVA) is Stephanie Kallos, especially in her book from a few years back—Broken For You. Clever, tight writing and quirky characters carefully woven together in a tapestry of desperation. Awesome read. Another stellar writer is David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle) as he masterfully guides us through life and deaths using the stark and naive perspective of a young boy. Sigh.
I love Invention of Wings. I will check out Stephanie Kallos, Broken for You. I like the title too. Enjoy, tight, clever writing and quirky! Thanks, for sharing, Heidi.
I love Louise Penny so much I have blogged about her several times. Interestingly, I found the first novel her least appealing (this isn’t a surprise; first novels sometimes aren’t, in comparison to later, more accomplished work) AND it should be noted that she got a new editor for her 3rd book and the quality took a huge leap. Granted, Penny was improving, too, but Hope Dellon has, I believe, certainly helped. Wait ’til you get to The Brutal Telling and Bury Your Dead. Oh my goodness gracious. Stunning stuff.
I’ve finished them all and I agree with you, Jamie. I almost put Still Life down because it started so slowly.
The power of a brilliant editor, right? 🙂
(Are you like me and now desperate to move to a cottage on the green in Three Pines?)
Hahahah. Yes. Still Life has some very, very strange editing and turns of phrases. I firmly believe the books need to be read in order to appreciate the character development and so on, but when I’m recommending the series I tell people to just hang in there with Still Life. And, hello, in my MIND I already life in Three Pines. 🙂
I didn’t realize you were already a Three Pines resident, Jamie. How about we meet at the Bistro after work?
Done!
This post is quite helpful. Thank you, Wendy.
“Morrow paused on the river trail to wipe her brow with the hem of her linsey shift. It was a true Kentucke July, and the woods were hot as a hearth, the leaves of the elms and oaks and sycamores curling back for lack of water, the dust beneath her bare feet as fine as flour. Even the river seemed like bath water, its surface still and unbroken as green glass.”
Courting Morrow Little, Laura Frantz.
I was sweating by the time I finished reading that.
For many more of their people, death did not just come quickly, strike hard, and then leave. No, it roamed among them. Morning, noon, and night. When the stars and the moon came out, death wandered in and lay down beside the prisoners. When no one was looking, it wrapped its cold blanket around elders and babies, young men and children, and snatched them away.”
Somebody who isn’t quite Laura Frantz.
I do like the image of “loosely wrapped and tightly wound”. It makes me think of someone who is just hanging around and then, boom, you’ve been roundhoused to the floor and you can’t remember when that happened.
That not quite Laura Frantz person has a powerful way with words. 😉
Yes, Laura Frantz does wonderful descriptive passages! Although I have to say, that excerpt by somebody who isn’t quite Laura Frantz is pretty intriguing 😉 The personification of death brings a real immediacy to the plight of the prisoners, and is just chilling, too.
“Death wandered in and lay down beside the prisoners … it wrapped its cold blanket around elders and babies …” Yeah.
I love good and moving description and I really like Louise Penny’s books. I always think Elizabeth Berg is a master at it because her description is often written like interaction – like the following. “…the onion scented smell of the long grass there, and the way it imprinted a pattern of itself against her skin after you lay in it.” Good description should enhance a story and not take over the story. Sometimes description can be so well written it draws attention to itself and not what it is describing.
Great tips, Wendy.
I did laugh at your opening paragraph, though. My ten-year-old daughter has almost finished reading all 56 of the original Nancy Drew books. She giggles every time she starts one because almost without fail Nancy’s “titian hair” is mentioned in the first several pages. 🙂
What sets my teeth on edge? Multiple adjectives in the same sentence, especially with awkward comma usage: “Caroline set her small, green, velvet bag on the worn, wooden platform and gazed up at the cloudless bright blue sky.”
I loved the sample of Louise Penny’s writing and am off to check out her book!
As Jamie says, Still Life is a little slow getting going but you’ll want to read all of them. Love.
Of a different sort, in part. . .
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back. . . .
–Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll 1872, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.
For many years I was a reading specialist with second language remedial reading students. Every week I would spend thirty minutes reading poetry with them. We read a wide variety of poetry. I often highlighted information about the poets’ lives because they lived such interesting lives. After an especially captivating poem, my students would draw an illustration. One of their favorites was “The Jabberwocky.” The children sketched amazing illustrations of the Jabberwocky and the “vorpal blade” which I affixed under a short verse from the poem.
One day another teacher came into my room and observed the student drawings. With tears in her eyes she began reciting the words of “Jabberwocky” from memory, slowly and with affection, as you do with words from a much-loved saying. It was one of those beautiful moments when time stands still.
Everything you say makes sense to me. What doesn’t make sense is why none of it applies to New York Times bestsellers, and how so many, in their rambling aspirations, get chosen by agents and catapulted to stardom by publishers when they’re chock full of the things they warn us vehemently against. What gives?
Hi Wendy! It’s been years. I’m SO glad you mentioned Louise Penny. She’s my favorite mystery writer and her books really evoke Quebec. I cannot remember which was set in Quebec city but not long after I read it I was up there (I’m bound there THIS Thursday — Yay!) and was staying, as usual, in the International Hostel a couple blocks away from the “library” in which a lot of the action took place. When I was reading the book, it evoked the neighborhood, but when I visited it again — well, I became a literary tourist. She’d captured it so well. I noticed, in a Quebec City ‘librairie’, that the book’s been translated into French. I almost bought a copy, to find out how she translates into French, but books are crazy expensive in Canada.
One of Elmore Leonard’s ten rules: all the stuff that you skip when you read, don’t write that.
It’s easier to say then do…
Best descriptions ever for me… Wodehouse and Chandler (oh yes, and Dickens) and while I’ll never be them, I can try to learn from them…
Excellent post, Wendy. I’ll certainly look into Louise Penny.
Sanora Babb wrote evocatively about the Depression era. Recently re-discovered, her life story is well worth a look. I was fascinated to learn that she’d graduated from my small-town high school.